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Wellness & Vaccinations

You love your pet, so of course you would like to see them live as many happy, healthy years as possible. The best way to accomplish this goal is through regular wellness care and preventative medicine. Because our animal companions age at a much faster rate than we do, it’s essential that they receive regular checkups to ensure their ongoing good health.

Even if your pet appears to be perfectly healthy, he or she may be masking the signs of an underlying illness that, if not caught early, could impact the length and quality of their life. Wellness visits allow us to evaluate your pet’s current health, and they also allow us to identify and address any changes that may occur over time. Disease prevention and early detection can add years to your pet’s life and improve the quality of those years ten-fold.

Dakota Hills Veterinary Clinic offers comprehensive wellness care to help keep our patients fit and improve their chances of living long, happy and healthy lives. We’ve strategically designed our wellness services to be able to adapt with your pet’s changing health care needs as they occur throughout his or her lifetime – from birth through the senior years.

For instance, while wellness care for your new puppy will focus on vaccines and nutrition, your adult pet’s care may shift more toward weight control and health screenings. Likewise, your senior pet’s wellness care will target disease management and helping to make those precious golden years as healthy and comfortable as possible. The goal is to provide for your pet’s specific needs, each and every time they come in, to help them achieve optimum wellness for life.

Wellness visits at Dakota Hills Veterinary Clinic, which we recommend at least once a year, are extremely thorough. We’ll start by asking a series of questions about your pet’s lifestyle and habits at home, and then conduct a comprehensive physical exam to develop a detailed health profile for your companion. We can then use this information to monitor your pet’s health over time.

In many cases, wellness visits provide our doctors with the opportunity to identify potential medical concerns and address them right away, before they have a chance to develop further. Not only can this save your pet’s life, but it can also save you money, since it’s always less expensive to deal with illness in its early stages than to treat it once it’s progressed.

Another important component of our wellness care is vaccinations. These simple medications protect our companion animals from a wide variety of dangerous illnesses and diseases, some of which can be life threatening. Yet just because there’s a vaccine available, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s something every pet needs. The goal is to keep your pet protected while also minimizing risk. We’ll develop a customized vaccination plan based on your pet’s specific needs.

Finally, although certainly no less important, routine wellness visits give all of us at Dakota Hills Veterinary Clinic a chance to get to know you and your pet and to develop a strong, lifelong bond that we feel is so important. The better we know and understand your companion’s needs, the more personalized and effective a health care plan we can develop to provide them with the best possible chance at enjoying a long, healthy and happy life by your side.

Don’t wait until your pet is sick to bring them in to see us! Give your cherished companion the gift of a lifetime of good health by committing to ongoing wellness care.